You’ve sent us your questions about sex, pregnancy, and parenting rights. Each month, we’ll pick one to answer here on the blog. Check out our latest Q&A below!

Breastfeeding may not be the most popular topic to bring up at school, but we often get questions from teens wondering how they can manage being a mom and being a student at the same time.

Your school cannot harass you just because you’re pregnant or parenting.  It also has to help make it a bit easier for you to go to school and be a parent.  One example is that if you want to pump or breastfeed, you have the right to do so in school and most schools have to give you “reasonable accommodations” to make that easier.

What does “reasonable accommodation” mean?   It means that the school has to give you a private space (not a bathroom) where you can feed your baby or pump milk.  It has to let you bring a pump to school and give you a place to store milk safely after it’s been pumped, and it has to give you reasonable time throughout the day to breastfeed or pump and not punish you academically for taking that time.  That’s not all.  Check out Education Code 222 for more.

When navigating both school and new parenthood, it’s important to know your rights so you can stand up for them and protect them if people around you don’t respect them. If a school forces you to pump in a bathroom or doesn’t give you these “reasonable accommodations,” you have a right to file a complaint.

To learn more about your other rights, feel free to browse throughout the site for more information!